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Ritter has big lead on Beauprez, poll finds

Stuart Steers, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 28, 2006 at midnight

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Democrats are ahead in three of four statewide races, holding a 19-point lead in the contest for governor, according to a poll released Friday.

The poll shows Democrat Bill Ritter leading Republican Congressman Bob Beauprez 52 percent to 33 percent. It follows the news that the FBI would join an investigation of how the Beauprez-for-governor campaign obtained information from a confidential government database.

The poll by Denver-based Ciruli and Associates of 501 likely voters has a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points. It was done for KUSA-TV between Oct. 24-26.

John Marshall, a spokesman for Beauprez, thinks the race is tighter than the poll shows.

"Ciruli needs to interview somebody besides Bill Ritter and his family," he said. Other polls show the race to be closer, he added.

The poll by Floyd Ciruli, a Democrat, shows Democrats leading in races for every statewide office except attorney general. In that race, incumbent John Suthers leads political newcomer Fern O'Brien 42 percent to 38 percent.

In the state treasurer's race, Democrat Cary Kennedy leads Republican Mark Hillman 40 percent to 37 percent, the poll said. For secretary of state, Democrat Ken Gordon has 43 percent to Republican Mike Coffman's 42 percent.

Still, those races have large numbers of undecided voters.

Ciruli, a veteran Colorado pollster, said this poll marked the first time he could remember that the percentage of voters who strongly identified with the Democratic Party virtually matched the percentage who strongly identified with the Republicans.

Twenty-one percent of his sample strongly identified with the Democrats, while 22 percent strongly identified with the Republicans.

"I think it's amazing," said Ciruli. "That is a dramatic improvement for the Democrats."

The Democrats are benefiting from a backlash against the war in Iraq and a perception that the country is headed in the wrong direction, said Ciruli.

"Having a Democratic label is a good thing this year," he said.

Ciruli said the number of voters who say they're unaffiliated has also spiked upward, and most of those voters are leaning toward the Democrats.